Well, I guess we will not be able to stop or solve the climate crisis, but we should try nevertheless. Al Gore is right, climate change is real. Unfortunately the world does not take him serious enough. Now he has started the we can solve it project. Good Luck..

Forget the financial crisis, the true global economic crisis will come in the next ten years. The end of cheap oil and the beginning of climate change are the first warning signs. We won’t be able to stop increasing oil prices in the long term. And we won’t be able to stop climate change and global warming.

Global warming and increasing oil prices are coupled: the more fossil fuels we burn, the more carbon dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere. If the last drop of oil or gas and the last piece of coal is burnt, the amount of CO2 has obviously reached the maximum. Each oil source will be exhausted one day, but the million barrels of oil the world consumes each day is growing constantly. The point of peak oil corresponds to the beginning of global warming.

The earth’s finite oil supply means that the point of peak oil is inevitable. If the global oil production finally declines while the consumption rises, the prices will continue to climb according to the principle of supply and demand. The reactions on the stock markets will be dramatic. The effect of crossing the point of “peak oil”, will be a global energy crisis. We have already a war about the last middle east oil reserves. More wars and social unrests will come.

Our whole economy is based on fossil fuels. There is no preventing of global warming or peak oil. As long as there is oil in the ground, it will be exploited. From the biggest companies of the world, nearly all have something to do with oil and automobiles (except Wal-Mart, but even Wal-Mart has to ship their products to the local stores somehow). 8 out of 10 from the biggest companies of the world live from oil or oil-consuming products: Exxon Mobil, Shell, British Patrol (BP), General Motors, Toyota, Chevron, Total, and ConocoPhillips (ConocoPhillips operates 19 refineries around the world) – including all the supermajor non state-owned oil companies. Big companies change their course as easy as an aircraft carrier.

The problem is global has negative long-term consequences, but governments act local and need positive short-term reactions to be re-elected. I don’t think we will be able to slow down climate change or global warming. We are only seeing the first signs of the true crisis. Prepare to live in warmer world without oil.

(Pictures are from Wikipedia, see here and here).

This is the beginning of the score for the fourth movement of Mozart’s symphony No. 39 KV 543 in E-flat Major. The full score of the symphony is available here

Mozart’s late works are his best, if you look at all his concertos and symphonies, you can clearly see that he was getting better with each work. The symphony No. 39 is one of his late and finest works, he wrote it together with his last two final Symphonies No. 40 (KV 500) and No. 41 (KV 551) in only seven weeks in the summer of 1788 during a crisis, three years before his early death in 1791 (at least according to the date when Mozart entered the works in this KV directory, some researchers argue that Mozart needed more time). Even if it took him a few weeks more, it is still impressive to write so many masterpieces in so little time. And maybe the crisis was a major driving force, Mozart’s income dropped while his spendings increased. Mozart probably would have written less masterpieces if his financial problems would have been less severe.

So here it is, the magnificent finale of Mozart’s symphony No. 39 KV 543 in E-flat Major, played by the Wiener Symphoniker directed by Karl Böhm.

George Lakoff about metaphors, frames, and perspectives. He talks about the unfortunate “War on Terror” metaphor and the NATION IS A FAMILY metaphor (esp. about the conservative “strict father” view vs. the progressive “nurturant parent” view)

What makes a terrorist? Are terrorists “zombies”, mindlessly following the orders of others; or mentally ill? Recent research on terrorism indicates that it comes out of a social process. It can also be considered as an unintended consequence. If the USA delivers weapons and military knowledge to autonomous parties in instable countries like Israel, Afghanistan and the former Iraq and even trains people there to fight, it is not surprising at all (perhaps even unavoidable) that eventually these weapons will be used for an unintended purpose against the will of the US, especially if all these people can do and have learnt to do is to fight.

Although it is therefore obvious that a blowback can happen in this case, it would perhaps interesting to find out the circumstances when it happens exactly, for example by simulating the phenomenon with agent-based modelling. I guess one sequence how terrorists are made – one pathway to terror – goes in a chain of events like this:

1. A superpower first delivers weapons and military knowledge to autonomous parties or groups in instable countries (according to the proverb “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”)
2. The autonomous parties succeed in their conflict, fight or resistance against something, e.g. an occupier or aggressor (Bin Laden was successful against the Russian occupier)
3. The autonomous parties do something that is not intended by the superpower (for example bombing embassies in their home countries)
4. The superpower turns against the autonomous parties, threatens them or tries to eliminate them (the Clinton administration for example tried to eliminate Bin Laden with a Cruise missile attack)
5. The autonomous parties react: they are going mad (become terrorists) and plan a terrorist attack on the superpower

Terms are relative: the terrorist for one is a freedom fighter for the other and vice versa. I guess you can find more examples in history: for example Arminius (the Germanic tribes) vs. the Roman Empire. Arminius was trained by the Romans as a Roman military commander, before he turned against the empire.

Terror is an adaptation – a natural response to tyranny of selfish global superpowers. A superior imperial superpower cannot be attacked directly using large army troops, it must be attacked by single, disguised actors in sudden surprise attacks – acts of terror in a guerrilla warfare. For the forces of the galactic empire, the rebels who want to destroy the death star are clearly terrorists. The only niche a superpower leaves is the decentralized, non-profit “terror” network which wants to save the world. The terror network is an adaptation to this niche. Terrorism is the stateless fight against imperial power, and it exists because the imperial power or state acts unjust and ‘selfish’. Therefore I think the phrase “War on Terror” is ridiculous. You cannot eradicate terror with occupation and imperial behavior. Occupation of countries is the best motivation for terrorists attacks.

The “war on terror” – the conflict USA vs. terrorists – is a bit like the futile fight of Microsoft vs. Open Source. In both cases a decentralized, non-profit network is the response to a centralized commercial superpower. Microsoft is not only a world or market leader, it is a superpower in the software world. Many open-source fans condemn Microsoft in the same way as some terrorists hate the USA. The only niche a centralized superpower leaves is the decentralized self-organizing system in the nobody-owns-it niche. Microsoft cannot beat Linux, in the same way that the USA cannot beat Al-Qaeda. There is no clear point where you can attack and throw your bomb except the symbolic leader. If he hides, your goal vanishes, too. In Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden occupies a similar role as Linus Torvalds in Linux or Jimmy Wales in WIKIPEDIA.

The largest software company (Microsoft) and the largest army (the US Army) both have no natural enemies in their domains, but they have “complementary” enemies: The US warmachine is fighting against stateless terrorism, and Microsoft is fighting against ownerless open source software. As the US will never be able to stop terrorism, Microsoft will probably never be able to stop open source and Linux. If Google will start to act as a selfish global superpower, then we will probably see the emergence of a decentralized self-organizing system in the nobody-owns-it niche again.

Tracking VC funding deals is a way to determine what’s considered hot in a given market. VC firms try to predict where they can make profits and start investing when the market starts showing real promise for major profits in 4-7 years. Recently, venture capital funding for social games, virtual worlds, casual MMO and casual games increased considerably, in Europe and the world.

An example is Metaplace, a startup that allows users to craft their own custom virtual worlds, see the screenshot above. It raised $6.7 Million VC capital lately. The combination of UGC and virtual worlds is especially interesting.

The problem with many virtual worlds is: they seem to be dead and pointless, and people have nothing to do. Well-known exceptions are: World of Warcraft, where you kill monsters, and Second Life, which is about porn, cybersex and money. Other worlds offer only the option to talk to people – and that’s too little to attract a lot of people permanently. Google’s Lively and Twinity will have to solve this problem if they want to be successful. We don’t need another pointless virtual world that wants you to have a virtual representation of yourself and the people around you.

New, strange, and foreign worlds would be interesting – if they are complex and exciting enough. UGC seems to be a useful way to create complex virtual worlds. Another problem is technology and raw speed: as I tried Just Leap In, my Laptop nearly stopped working. It is not easy to build a fast MMO with complex content. MMOs and MMORPGs are interesting in general because they require a sophisticated large scale server architecture with the latest technologies.

It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied. ~ W.A. Mozart

Interesting form of organization: the soloist directs the team itself. Originally the soloist has been the composer itself (for example Mozart who wrote, directed and played the concertos himself, like Shakespeare who wrote, directed and played his plays), later soloists focused on playing alone. Here is a video that shows Mitsuko Uchida conducting and playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 KV 466, the 1st movement (the first part on YouTube is here the second part here). I have watched her live in Berlin, she is really excellent when she plays Mozart. One exceptional master artist exercises leadership through superior knowledge (similar to some master software developers or chief programmers in small teams).

Paul Rendell has implemented a full Turing Machine in Conway’s Game Life. A bit crazy, weird and probably awful slow (if someone would really like to compute something).

This impressive Mercury image from the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite shows the Sun in ultraviolet wavlengths on November 8, 2006, as Mercury’s disk began to transit the Sun (Credit: NASA / TRACE). Look at the giant dimensions of the sun! The earth is not much larger than Mercury. More impressive pictures of the sun here.